A Tale of Two Cities

One united in grief, the other divided by hatred.

It's only a few months since the city stood united against violence in memory of Rhys Jones. The Kop applauded as Z-Cars was played and players and supporters were unanimous in their solidarity. People, Red or Blue wanted an end to the violence.

Rewind 20+ years to Hillsborough and the city, once again, united in grief. Everton supporters lost friends and indeed family members at Hillsborough. Is it feasible that we would celebrate that tragic event by taunting Liverpool supporters last Sunday? I wasn't there but some of you may have been. Is it true, am I just naive in believing we could never stoop so low?

More than enough words have been written and views expressed about the derby, some comments have hardly help matters cool and have just added to the simmering hotbed of vitriol that has been bubbling away nicely for quite some time. The situation is now escalating to a point where it will be almost impossible to recover and each derby will become more intense and more vitriolic.

Yes, football is a man's game and you can't go to the match and behave like a big jessie, getting upset because you hear a few swear words. It would be wrong to attempt to sanitise the game, but are we very near a point where the clubs themselves should ask for the fans to moderate the type of insults that are now common place at football games? This isn't about foul language, this is about some insults that if spoken in the street, would result in arrest and prosecution. What happened to the calls of 'let's kick racism out of football', does that only apply to certain football stadia?

I apologise for using the words I am about to use:

I honestly thought that I would never hear the word 'mong' or 'nigger' being used again in a football ground. Sadly that would appear not to be the case. Like I said, I wasn't there but it has been widely reported that these words were used in relation to Lee Carsley's daughter and to Yak's colour. Joleon Lescott was also subjected to comments regarding his facial scar along with a brief ditty reminding Phil Neville that 'your baby can't walk'. I understand that Phil's daughter suffers from Cerebral Palsey.

Is it me or are we really plumbing the depths of the basest of mankind's hatred to fellow human beings?

If the above is all true then surely we must have passed that point where decent people should stand up and be counted and say 'enough is enough'. Dear God in heaven, how on earth could Phil, Lee and the other lads contain their pain and anger if they did indeed hear these sick chants? Please no one come back to say that 'they're professionals, they get paid enough to put up with it'. Can you imagine a group of people calling the most precious thing in your life some of the things that were said? And don't even get me started on the spitting and punching.

Banter, yes; getting called a useless twat, okay (but I think it's counter productive when aimed at our own players!) but calling someone's daughter a 'mong'? No, no and no again.

I am a broad minded person and admit to having laughed the first time I heard the 'baby's not yours' chant so I'm hardly as pure as the driven snow! While I'm at it, I might as well confess to calling Mark Halsey a wanker but at least I wasn't alone. Perhaps that's the point, it was okay to call him a wanker because everyone else was doing it. It's alright to call Joleon "Elephant Man" because quite a few people did it. It was okay to laugh at 'the baby's not yours' because everyone else was doing it.

The day that Z cars was played at Anfield, the MAJORITY of people dictated that respect must be shown, the majority of people dominated the potential small minority who never in a million years would have wanted our tune to be played at their ground. The decent people were in the majority and the majority dictated the events around that terrible time.

Time, perhaps, once again, for the majority to dictate and attempt to end this terrible, distressing cycle of hatred to eachother. I for one, have had enough, I am sickened by what I've heard and I can but hope that some good will come of it.

One thing that we should do on Sunday is show our support to Phil and Lee, Joleon and Yak. I read today that Tim Howard loves hearing us chant 'USA', it gives him a real lift. The lads who took all that stick on Sunday might need a lift too.

Reader Comments

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer